Adding apps to wrong screen?

[ROE_HUNTER]

When I download an app it adds the icon to the third screen instead of the open space on the second screen. How do I change that?

 

[Note8uzer]

I don't think you can. My phone also does that.

 

[ROE_HUNTER]

I don't think you can. My phone also does that.

That stinks.

 

[Chasfenner]

If you go into settings in the Play store, you can uncheck the "add to home screen" option so that you can drag it from the app drawer to the open space on the home screen and not have to move it from the extra home screen and then delete the screen every time.

 

[ROE_HUNTER]

If you go into settings in the Play store, you can uncheck the "add to home screen" option so that you can drag it from the app drawer to the open space on the home screen and not have to move it from the extra home screen and then delete the screen every time.

Yes, this is what I will probably do. Thanks

 

[Jerry3636]

If you go into settings in the Play store, you can uncheck the "add to home screen" option so that you can drag it from the app drawer to the open space on the home screen and not have to move it from the extra home screen and then delete the screen every time.

I have an app called Organized drawer. When I hold a finger over an app, I get an option place it on home screen but if there is already 1 I cannot add another shortcut. It is not possible to drag a shortcut directly from drawer to a desired location. Do you know any drawer app where it would be possible?

 

[Dennisr821]

I have the same problem with two devices. I believe it started after the last Android update.

 

[GuccizBud]

This was driving me nuts as well, but I experimented and finally figured out what's going on. When a new icon is to be automatically added to your homescreen, the methodology goes like this :
 
 
① First, every home screen you have will be ignored except for the very last  (  i.e. rightmost ) one, right off the bat. The immediate implication is that even if you have home screens before the rightmost one that have blank areas — including fully blank pages ( ! ) — they will be ignored because the rightmost page is the only one that will be looked at.
 
 
② If the rightmost screen happens to also be the main homescreen  ( normally not the case, but if ), a new screen will be created and the new icon will be placed there, in the top left corner position specifically, and the algorithm will terminate here.
 
 
③ If the rightmost screen is not   the main home screen  ( usually the case )  then only the bottom right corner position  of the page
( discounting the dock )  will be looked at to see if it's occupied or not.  Again here, it won't matter even if the rest of the page is blank, because the bottom right corner is the only spot that will be examined.
 
 
④ If the bottom right corner position is  occupied, a new screen will be created and the new icon will be placed there, in the top left corner position specifically, and the algorithm will terminate here. I realized what was happening here in my case was that I had a Google Search bar occupying the entirety of the bottom row ( far left to far right ) and, precisely because it did  go all the way to the right ( and was therefore occupying the bottom right corner spot ) a new screen was being created every time a new icon was to automatically appear, regardless of anything else.
 
 
⑤ If the bottom right corner position is not  occupied, the new icon will be placed on that screen, in the first free spot specifically, and the algorithm will terminate here. To determine "first free spot", the top row is scanned, left to right, then the second row is scanned, and so on, until a free spot is found on the page for the new icon.
 
 
I suspect some people will recognize their own situation when reading about the Google Search bar thing I mention in point ④ ;   if so, then besides the options of moving the search widget higher on the page ( or getting rid of it entirely ), there is the possibility of resizing it such that the page's bottom right corner spot is open ᎓
 
 
  before

   │┌───────┐｜
   ｜└───────┘｜
 
 
  after

   │┌─────┐        ｜
   ｜└─────┘        ｜
 
 
…  as liberating that space will cause ④ above to be false and ⑤ to be true, and the new icon will be placed in the first free spot on that page. Even if there are free spots on the page above the Google Search widget, they will only get used if the bottom right corner position is liberated, silly as it sounds.

Obviously, having to jump through hoops like this is less than ideal, and you may decide it's time to get another front end and install a launcher that affords you more control. Nova launcher, for one, which is popular with the technical community in particular, uses a much simpler methodology whereby the new icon is simply placed in the first available spot when looking at all  home screens, from left to right, so the only time a new page gets created is if you don't have any free spots anywhere at all. While this is better than Samsung's ( admittedly absurd ) method, even this falls short of any kind of real control over the placement of icons. I recently wrote TeslaCoilSW ( makers of Nova launcher ) about this and they replied
❝…  it's something that we plan on completely revamping in the future to give users multiple choices of where icons are placed.❞

 

[Coching]

Thanks for your hard work. I made my main home screen the rightmost home screen and left the lower right space empty and that fixed the problem. What an unintuitive system.

 

[BrnChiara]

This was driving me nuts as well, but I experimented and finally figured out what's going on. When a new icon is to be automatically added to your homescreen, the methodology goes like this :
 
 
① First, every home screen you have will be ignored except for the very last  (  i.e. rightmost ) one, right off the bat. The immediate implication is that even if you have home screens before the rightmost one that have blank areas — including fully blank pages ( ! ) — they will be ignored because the rightmost page is the only one that will be looked at.
 
 
② If the rightmost screen happens to also be the main homescreen  ( normally not the case, but if ), a new screen will be created and the new icon will be placed there, in the top left corner position specifically, and the algorithm will terminate here.
 
 
③ If the rightmost screen is not   the main home screen  ( usually the case )  then only the bottom right corner position  of the page
( discounting the dock )  will be looked at to see if it's occupied or not.  Again here, it won't matter even if the rest of the page is blank, because the bottom right corner is the only spot that will be examined.
 
 
④ If the bottom right corner position is  occupied, a new screen will be created and the new icon will be placed there, in the top left corner position specifically, and the algorithm will terminate here. I realized what was happening here in my case was that I had a Google Search bar occupying the entirety of the bottom row ( far left to far right ) and, precisely because it did  go all the way to the right ( and was therefore occupying the bottom right corner spot ) a new screen was being created every time a new icon was to automatically appear, regardless of anything else.
 
 
⑤ If the bottom right corner position is not  occupied, the new icon will be placed on that screen, in the first free spot specifically, and the algorithm will terminate here. To determine "first free spot", the top row is scanned, left to right, then the second row is scanned, and so on, until a free spot is found on the page for the new icon.
 
 
I suspect some people will recognize their own situation when reading about the Google Search bar thing I mention in point ④ ;   if so, then besides the options of moving the search widget higher on the page ( or getting rid of it entirely ), there is the possibility of resizing it such that the page's bottom right corner spot is open ᎓
 
 
  before

   │┌───────┐｜
   ｜└───────┘｜
 
 
  after

   │┌─────┐        ｜
   ｜└─────┘        ｜
 
 
…  as liberating that space will cause ④ above to be false and ⑤ to be true, and the new icon will be placed in the first free spot on that page. Even if there are free spots on the page above the Google Search widget, they will only get used if the bottom right corner position is liberated, silly as it sounds.

Obviously, having to jump through hoops like this is less than ideal, and you may decide it's time to get another front end and install a launcher that affords you more control. Nova launcher, for one, which is popular with the technical community in particular, uses a much simpler methodology whereby the new icon is simply placed in the first available spot when looking at all  home screens, from left to right, so the only time a new page gets created is if you don't have any free spots anywhere at all. While this is better than Samsung's ( admittedly absurd ) method, even this falls short of any kind of real control over the placement of icons. I recently wrote TeslaCoilSW ( makers of Nova launcher ) about this and they replied
❝…  it's something that we plan on completely revamping in the future to give users multiple choices of where icons are placed.❞

I think its even simpler than that. I think the system reads the screens like we read a book, from left to right, from the top to bottom. With that in mind every time I add a new icon it always popped up after the last icon that I had in my home screens, regardless the page you set as home and if there are blanks spaces before. So at least in my S8 the new icon was always located right the last icon, even creating a new page if it has to.

Sorry for any grammatical errors here, english is not my first language. I hope I made my point understandable at least.

 

[GuccizBud]

I think its even simpler than that. I think the system reads the screens like we read a book, from left to right, from the top to bottom. With that in mind every time I add a new icon it always popped up after the last icon that I had in my home screens, regardless the page you set as home and if there are blanks spaces before. So at least in my S8 the new icon was always located right the last icon, even creating a new page if it has to.

Sorry for any grammatical errors here, english is not my first language. I hope I made my point understandable at least.

My post doesn't reflect what I think, or guess; it's the result of a couple hours of experimenting with every possibility, and taking note of the results. But that's on my device, and I can't speak for anyone else's.

This is old news by now anyway, and I've since "rediscovered" Nova launcher, after having spent my first 3 months with this device using stock launcher.

 

[BrnChiara]

The contents of my post, all of it, were not what I think, guess, assume, or surmise; they were the actual results of hours of meticulous experimenting with every possibility, and taking note of the results. But it is on MY device, and I can't speak for anyone else's.

This is old news by now and I rediscovered Nova since then anyway.

I dont want to say that you was wrong or anything, I just want to show that on my device the programming was even more stupid than yours. Of course your results are more conclusive and took more time to find, I just test it for like 5 minutes without checking every possibility. I'm sorry if I sound rude, was not my intention at all. I just think that what I find could be interesting for someone else that have a device that behaves like mine.

 

[jb4kats]

Thanks for your hard work. I made my main home screen the rightmost home screen and left the lower right space empty and that fixed the problem. What an unintuitive system.

You can also drag it which ever screen you want to make your home screen